Love and Motorcycles
by LoveandMotorcycles
Summary: Jesse Gardella: He's 19, he's got his top rocker, and he's got every girl with a pulse and a short skirt under his royal thumb. Or he did, until he narrowed his sights on Emmalyn Blake. Emmalyn Blake: She's 17, she's beautiful, she's smart, and she has the world in her hands. But when she meets the Biker Prince she becomes determined to be the one thing that sticks. (Original fic)


I was going to be late. Not only had my study group run late, but I couldn't decide on what I was going to wear. It was extremely important to me that I wear just the right thing. It was my way of saying I was sorry for, in my own stupid way, belittling how important this night was for him. I knew it and yet I downplayed it anyway. We fought, I couldn't even remember why anymore, and I had threatened more than once not to show up at all.

Which was how it was now going to look.

I was panicking as I went through every outfit I owned, knowing none of them would make me look like I fit in and for once that was all I wanted. I had seen enough of his world to know that I was on the outside of it. I wasn't the kind of girl he brought to the clubhouse, and I certainly wasn't the kind of girl who just showed up, especially on a night when the club would be in full swing.

It was the thing that made our relationship, or whatever you wanted to call it, the hardest. He was always in high demand and I didn't ever see myself living up to his expectations. He never said it, but I truly believed that my lack of experience, even now, would be our undoing. I knew without being told that I wasn't always the only girl in his life and every time we were together and he still went to someone else, a little part of me died.

I could have put an end to it. All I had to do was walk away or tell him exactly what I wanted. Neither option was particularly appealing. If I told him what it was I wanted, I would first have to be honest with myself and admit that I wanted more from him than either of us had hinted at before. And by telling him that truth I risked losing him anyway. I could walk away, I did have that in my power. But I didn't want to and I couldn't even explain why. So I stayed, remaining the one thing in his life that was outside the club, outside his charm and, sometimes, just outside his reach.

I was constantly reminding myself that he didn't seem to care that I was different, I showed less skin than all the other girls, the so-called Sinners, who hung around him. He didn't seem to care that I was quiet and that I was more interested in spending time with him than trying to prove myself to a roomful of bikers. Unlike the other girls and women around me, when I was with him, I was with him.

I had nothing to prove to anyone else. I knew the rules of this game, if only because I had written them time and time again in my own head. When he got tired of me I would leave, disappear into the folklore of the Club and become that girl who hung around for some time but wasn't all that fun because she didn't get drunk or blow whatever biker asked her to. I always made that abundantly clear to him, that he couldn't pass me around like something to be shared.. And when it was the two of us, I thought he got it. But surrounded by his Brothers he put on that facade, that charm that I'd walked away from three years before came to the surface and the differences between us became more apparent. It got him what he wanted, it always would, but I never played into it. When that charm came out, I was gone. And he knew it.

The thing was, he wasn't always aware of the way he could pull someone to him like a magnet, and I knew that, too. I knew it was just a part of who he was, it came naturally. But in The Den, he knew. I had only ever been to The Den a handful of times, but he was always who they wanted him to be, who they expected him to be. Who he was born to be. And I seemed to turn his head from those things. The prevailing thought, that wasn't said to his face, was that I was bad for business, so to speak. Most of the time he didn't care. Most of the time I didn't care. But tonight was about him and I didn't want to stand in the way. I wanted to stand by his side. So I was late.

I could tell as I approached the clubhouse, by the way there was a crescendo of noise and music and voices, that the ceremony before the party, had already happened. I felt disappointment that, once again, I couldn't show him the support I wanted to. I was always one wrong move away from getting shut out of his life. He never hinted at as much, but it was how I saw it.

Walking into the clubhouse was like walking into another world, and this world highlighted everything I still thought was wrong with myself. The women who were sauntering in and out of the doors were tall and beautiful, wearing barely wearing enough clothing to cover their voluptuous assets, which I was not in possession of. It was enough to make me turn around and go back to my dorm. All it would take was a simple text message: _Sorry. Can't do it. Bye._

It would be over, that time. It would be too bold of a move, too pointed. It would say, loud and clear, that I didn't want all parts of his life. Whatever _it_ was that passed between us would be snuffed out. It would be easier, to walk away from it all, from the unknown feelings that he stirred up inside of me, but I didn't want to give into the insecurity that I felt, I didn't want to let everyone else win. I was bullied because _he _paid attention to me when they all wanted a piece of him. He was the guy everyone wanted something from, a look, a touch, a laugh, anything, and when I was around, he didn't give anyone else the time of day. I was self-aware enough to know that. When we were apart, the idea that he was treating someone they way he treated me drove me insane. Maybe that was why I kept coming back, clinging desperately to the idea that it could be different with me. If I was around, he couldn't look at someone the way he looked at me, he couldn't treat someone the way he treated me. I didn't want to give another one of those girls who would literally do anything for him, to him, a chance to see what I saw.

So I kept walking, my head down.

The Den was suffocating that night, filled with booze and smoke and bodies. It was a big deal, when members patched in, and when that member happened to be club royalty, it was an even bigger deal. The booze and weed flowed like they were water, and normally that wouldn't matter but that night it just made everything else feel incredibly out of place. I tried to ignore the way people looked at me from the moment I walked in. It was nothing new, in fact it was something I had grown to be able to handle. People looked at me strangely even when I was with him, but when the looks turned into whispers, I began to pay attention. There were some genuine looks of worry. There were looks of pity. There were looks of disdain. And none of them I could understand. All I did was walk into the party and it was like I was a bomb dropped into their laps. Until the crowd parted like the fucking Red Sea and it was unbearably clear why I was getting more attention than usual.

At the end of the length of the clubhouse, tucked away in the back corner, was Jesse. He was wearing his Cut, complete with his newly earned top rocker, and for an instant I smiled. He looked good in it, he looked at home in it. I knew he'd been prospecting longer than was necessary because of his family legacy within the club and I knew how proud he was to get that rocker. This was, of course, before the true weight of responsibility that went along with being a full-fledged member had actually been felt, a time when patching into the club was still, at least in a partial form, his own idea. But that smile was only for a moment as I realized what the rest of the scene looked like.

Because he wasn't alone.

Draped on him was one of the Sinners, one of the girls who always hung around the clubhouse hoping to get a piece of the action. My vision tunneled to nothing but Jesse and the girl. She had herself wrapped around him, their bodies touching in a way that brought the heat of embarrassment to my cheeks, and anger simmering in my blood, well on its way to a boil. I shouldn't have been so angry, he was free to touch anyone he wanted and that was my own fault. I allowed him to have that freedom because I didn't count myself worthy enough, strong enough, to hold his attention. So what I saw was, in part, my own fault. I felt sick, the anger slowly boiling to rage as I looked at them. He didn't even feel me looking at him, my eyes boring into the way her hands touched him, the way he smiled at her and encouraged her touch. He was drunk, he had to be, but it didn't matter. He quickly became that guy from the bar three years ago, using his charm to get exactly what he wanted, and what he wanted, it seemed, was an easy way into a very easy girl's pants. And she would let him. She had no allegiance to me, and neither, it seemed, did he.

Why should they care what I might think, when I never gave anyone any indication that he was anything but free game? Why was I consumed with this anger? Was it strictly his fault, for letting her near him? Or was it mine in considering myself not worth enough for him? The truth, though, which I could not admit to myself, was knowing exactly where that anger came from, but not being able to express it.  
"Fuck this." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, before I could think better of them. And they heard me. I don't know what he thought, in that moment when I spoke, because my eyes were focused on her. And she had a satisfied smirk on her face.

So I did what it was I did best: I turned and I walked away.  
I didn't hear the music.  
I didn't hear the voices of people around me.  
I didn't hear him calling after me.

All I heard was the rush of blood in my ears and all I felt was my heart breaking in my chest. How much longer did I let him do this to me? How much longer did I share him with the countless girls who wanted to have a piece of him, and watch him give it, so willingly? Was he trying to hurt me, by being with that girl? If he knew I would show up, despite being late, despite downplaying the importance and significance of the night, then the only logical answer was yes.

"Emma, wait!" I barely heard his voice over the blaring music and my own anger. I kept walking, even though I know he was following me. I had to get away from him, I had to get away from all of them.

"Emma, STOP." His voice rang out in the night as we both burst into the night air. He grabbed my arm trying to pull me back into the clubhouse, but I pulled away from him.

"Don't touch me! Don't. Do not touch me after she's been all over you!"  
He backed away from me, looking at me with this incredulousness that only set my anger more ablaze, like I was crazy to not want anything to do with him after what I had seen.

"Baby, its nothing. She's nothing, shes just some club slut that was congratulating me on getting patched."

He tried to pull me to him again and I pulled away like his touch was burning me. Which, in reality, it was. He set fire to me with a single look, a single touch and in that moment all I wanted was the power to put the fire out. But as with most things when it came to he and I, he held all of the power. No matter the fact that his charm and his smile didn't work on me like they worked on other girls, he held me in the palm of his hand. Never had that been more clear to me than right then. I stalked away from him, ignoring his voice calling my name, ignoring the way he was still following me.

It was the final straw in a long string of hurts. It didn't matter, not then, that he'd left the leech behind to follow me. In that moment, all I could think about was the fact that he'd been letting someone else touch him. It made it hard to breath. It made it hard to focus.

I'd never wanted anything or anyone to belong to me in my entire life, and as I fought to get away from him, I knew I would never want it again. If I couldn't have him, nothing else mattered.

And the cold, hard truth was that he couldn't belong to anyone. He wouldn't let himself. All I wanted was a way in and for three years I had tried, succeeded and yet failed. It was one thing to know that I wasn't the only person in his life, but it was another to see it first hand.

He screamed after me, things I didn't hear, things I didn't want to hear, things that didn't make sense. His words were drunken, slurred, but there was something else beneath them that she had never heard before: Desperation.

If I hadn't been so blinded by the hurt that I was feeling, maybe I would have recognized that. But all I heard was noise.

"Emma STOP."

The command in his voice made me obey, but only to whirl on him, my anger and hurt on full display.

"What!? What do you want! You want me to stop and say its okay? Well its not! Its not okay. You knew I was coming, Jesse. _You knew_ and you did it anyway. You let her..touch you..."

He tried to contain me, my anger, my sadness that bubbled just below the surface. He tried to hold it all together with words, with explanations, but I broke free from his influence, an unstoppable force.

"What is this, Jesse? Why the fuck am I here? What is the point. You don't need me here. You probably didn't even WANT me here! So congratulations on your stupid fucking patch, asshole. Now get the fuck away from me!"

I raged at him because i didn't know what else to do. I didn't know how to tell him what he was doing to me. Under normal circumstances he would just know. I wouldn't have to tell him what I was thinking or what I was feeling, but right now it felt as though the gulf between his world and mine was miles wide. For the first time in a long time we were standing on opposite sides and I didn't know how to get back to him. I knew, dimly, that yelling at him was the fastest way to hurt him. I knew he hated it. I knew the family he grew up in, but that didn't stop me from using my anger as a weapon, pointed and deadly. If I was going to hurt, so was he.

I stared at him, waiting, just waiting for him to show me a sign that he understood, that I wasn't wrong to feel so betrayed. But he simply stood before me, somehow smaller than his stature would suggest. Disgusted, at him, at myself, I turned to go, knowing he was only steps behind me. We reached the outer door and he was right there, beside me. I could feel him, smell him; if I wanted to I could touch him. But his proximity made me angry and it swelled within me, something I know he saw.

"If you wanna go, then go. There's the door. I'm not gonna stop you." He pulled the door open, offering me the out I said I wanted. All I had to do was take it. I looked from his hand on the door to him. He looked different, less wasted. I knew the kind of person he was, I knew what he was doing. While I raged, he calmed. While I forced the issue, wanted answers, he remained as hands off as I had ever seen him. What I did next, no matter how much anger filled my head, no matter how much I wanted to hurt him, would be my choice. I could leave. I could stay. But whatever I did was not because of him. He very unselfishly handed that power over to me. I suppose he always had. That was the thing about us. I wasn't there because of any one reason but my own free will. I had gone to The Den that night because I wanted to see him. He hadn't insisted. He really hadn't even suggested it. So then who was I really angry at? Him, for taking advantage of the freedoms I allowed him? Or me, for giving him those freedoms in the first place?  
I wanted him to fight me, but I knew he wouldn't. He never had. When we fought, I was the one to lose it. He was hurtful in other ways, but he never raised his voice to me, never laid a hand on me. I could push and push all I wanted for some sort of sign that he wanted me to stay, that he wanted me at his side, but I wasn't going to get that sign in the way I wanted. Now when he had, in all actuality, already given me that sign. By allowing me the freedom to choose whether or not I stayed, he was telling me, in his own way, that he wanted me to choose him, to choose not to believe what I had seen. He couldn't say it. But I didn't have to make him.

I shut the door.

Neither of us said a word. He simply nodded and reached out to me, tentatively, knowing that any little thing could set me off again and I'd be running right out the door. He put his arm around me and I slipped my arms around him. In the relative darkness, with the muffled sounds of a party that was being thrown for him surrounding us, I rested my head against his chest and breathed in deeply. I could smell alcohol and leather and nicotine, his cologne and then, of course, the other girl's perfume. I pulled back from him but not away. He slipped his arm around my shoulders and together we walked back into the party.

Immediately the atmosphere shifted. Everyone had seen us run out of the party and everyone could see us returning. I shrank, but I shrank into him. I could see Sinners practically salivating now that he was back, the more bold ones stalking up to us as if I was invisible. But he ignored them. I could see murderous, jealous looks in their eyes, but other members peeled them away from us as if they knew that their prince was now off limits. I saw the way people were looking at us, especially the older members. They had that knowing look on their faces, one or two high fived him. I looked up at him and saw this smug, self-assured look on his face and I immediately began to regret closing that door. I wasn't like the other girls but he was waltzing me through The Den like I was. It took me a moment to realize where he was taking me, but once I saw the hallway stretching out before us, I knew it was a one way ticket to the room he had at the back of the clubhouse. No wonder the older members looked so damn proud. In trying to be different I had fallen right into the trap that made me just like them. I ignored the not so subtle ribbing and the joking and the looks people were giving me. If he wanted me to fit the part, I would fit the part. So I walked with him knowing that when this night was over, he would have made me into one of the girls they used and discarded. And I would let it happen.

But when we were in the room, when he gave his father or his uncle or whoever one last parting shot and the door closed, separating us from them, the self-assured look melted off his face and was replaced with something more like shame.

"You okay?"

I looked at him, no longer sure what parts were were playing. He fidgeted and reached for a cigarette in the pocket of his cut, lighting up and taking a long drag.

"They'd be back here in no time if they didn't think they already knew what was goin' on," he said, offering the words as an apology. He sat down in a chair by his desk and nodded to the bed that was behind me. I sat on the floor.

We sat in silence, me on the bed and he in his chair, while he smoked. With each pull of the cigarette, I felt myself relaxing, the anger draining from me. He'd come after me. He took me to his room, even if it was all just a show. He could be with anyone at this party, but he had chosen me. Maybe I had reacted too harshly, too quickly, but when the object of your madness is possessed by someone else, that madness tends to take over. It always had and it always would.

"You look beautiful," he said. I blushed, unable to stop myself. I wasn't needy, but I craved to hear those things from him because when he said them, they were true. He didn't say it simply to say it; he didn't offer compliments to me as a means to any sort of end. He didn't need to. I'd already given myself to him in innumerable ways. Flattery was now just a game he was well-skilled at playing. But it didn't win him any points. So I knew he really thought it.

We started talking, just talking. I know it seems impossible that, locked away in that room with huge expectations from everyone on the other side of the door still hanging over our heads, that we just talked. But its all we did. He seemed to like that I listened and didn't judge him. I asked questions, even when I knew I shouldn't, and he always answered me. We slowly built a trust up between us and it was a thread that connected us and carried us, from two people in a crowded bar, stealing glances and not understanding what this other person, this stranger, meant, to two people who could sit in a locked room without any physical contact and still be so damn connected. I had never felt this close to anyone before in my life, not even with my sister. We shared a bond that was both obligation and choice; he and I shared a bond that was purely choice. Either one of us could sever it at any time. But neither of us would.

"Can I show you something?" He asked this question after what had to be hours had passed. We'd exhausted the details of the patching ceremony, he'd gotten me to tell him about my one woman fashion show with my mirror, we'd even almost touched on why I'd gotten so angry with him, but my thoughts got all jumbled in my head and it was like he knew I wanted to leave then, so he changed the subject. We'd gravitated towards one another without realizing it and we were both sitting on the floor of the room, our legs touching and nothing more. It was, despite the location, the picture of innocence.

He got up from the floor and pulled something out from under his bed, a huge plastic bin like one of the ones we had in our attic for winter clothes. He seemed nervous and that alone made me pay attention. He pulled the lid off of the bin and pushed it towards me. Inside were hundreds of comic books, all of them in pristine condition. I looked from the books to him. I tried to hide my surprise, but I know it was written all over my face. A comic book collector was not a label I would have assigned to him, and he would have known that. Comics were for kids and nerds and he was neither. It was a part of him that I hadn't seen before, a part of him that didn't seem to fit in with the life I knew he led.

He pulled out comic book after comic book, telling me his favorites, his least favorites, the ones that were worth the most money but he would never part with. He told me about the characters he could relate to and how he could lose hours on end just reading one after another. The way he spoke, his voice more quiet than usual, told me that this wasn't something anyone else in his life was privileged to. It was something that would earn him ridicule because it wasn't badass. But for me, it showed me something that I hadn't been able to see before, something that would become the key to why he always meant so much to me, why I would never let go. It showed me that he was just a boy.

Under the Cut and the girls and the booze and the weed and the hardass persona was the boy I had glimpsed all those years before. I hadn't been wrong to peg him as different, it just took him time to be able to trust that I wouldn't be like everyone else in his life, just wanting a piece of the facade and being satisfied with that. By staying with him that night, by setting aside my anger at what I had seen, I told him with my actions in ways my words hadn't yet been able to that I wasn't easily set aside. I didn't want a piece. I wanted it all.

Hours passed and my head grew heaving, coming to rest against his shoulder, a space that had quickly become mine. I should leave, but leaving him was my weakness; I couldn't do it. It actually pained me to leave him, which I knew was probably some cliche I had learned from the movies for the books I read, but when it was applied to he and I it didn't feel so cliche.

"You're gonna stay here," he said when I could no longer keep my eyes open. He was packing the comic books away, careful with each one.  
"Take the bed."

I hesitated, my mind playing games with me, filling in the blanks of time when I wasn't with him. It was one thing to be in this room with him and simply be, but it was somehow another to see his bed. I knew there were other girls, but I didn't let myself think about them. But standing between him and that bed, the other girls were all I could think about.

"I don't like… sleep with those other girls," he said as if he could read my mind. I didn't look at him, almost ashamed that he was being so kind to me and all I could think about was who had been in this bed before me and how long ago it was. I looked at him and he looked at him, look on his face telling me I'd better listen to him.

"I bring girls back here, or else I get shit on. But nothing's happened. Not since you."

I couldn't tell if he meant not since we'd met or since we'd slept together, but I wasn't sure that either scenario would be the wrong answer. His voice was soft, like he was offering me another apology. I turned and looked at him, measuring the truth in his eyes. He looked at me only briefly, but it was enough. He didn't say much, ever, but ten words said volumes. So I took his word, and I climbed into his bed.

"Stay with me," I said when I thought I saw him getting ready to leave the room. I didn't want him to go back to the party, as selfish as that was. I didn't want him to put on that mask again and have other girls think they could see half of the man that I knew he was. It would break me. It got harder every time I left him, every time I had to wonder where he was or where he had been. It was like the idea of him was clawing its way out from my very core and sharing him, in any sense, was going to destroy me.

"I'm not goin' anywhere," he said, showing me that he was getting comfortable in the chair he'd been sitting in hours before. I shook my head. That wasn't what I wanted, the distance, the pretending that we could stay away from one another.

"Stay with me," I said again. He understood.

I watched him as he pulled his shirt over his head and let it drop on the floor. I felt my stomach do flip flops, something I was growing used to in his presence, and I felt my heart racing. I took a breath to calm myself, because while I was always drawn to him physically, I knew that this moment, this night, was not about that connection. It was about something so much more. He climbed into the bed beside me, his arm slipping under my shoulders and drawing me into his chest. That one gesture took my breath away because it felt so natural, so routine, and yet it felt like he was discovering the way to hold me for the first time. He clicked off the light beside the bed and we were engulfed in darkness, the residual sounds of the party, his party, still audible from somewhere else in The Den. But all I heard was his breathing, our hearts. I let my hand rest on his chest but neither he nor I pushed for anything more.

"You know, sex is boring. I'd rather read a book," he said. I tilted my head to get a better look at him in the darkness. There was no smile on his face, he wasn't joking. It was another confession, another chink in the armor that was the biker prince.

"I love you," I said before I could stop myself. The words were whispered and I could deny them later if he didn't hear me, but in that moment, tangled in his arms, no matter what had gone on between the two of us, I meant them all the more. It had been two years since we began down this path and I neither saw no end in sight, nor did I want to turn back and start all over. I couldn't be positive when I first knew that it was love, but it was some time ago The words were heavy, dangerous I should not love this man, a man who draws me in and pushes me out, but its far too late now. I waited for some sign that I had stepped over an invisible line, but I didn't get one. Instead, almost imperceptibly he tightened his arm around me. I relaxed, and closed my eyes. There was nothing to be afraid of.

Morning came with the jarring disorientation of not knowing where I was. I knew I wasn't in my dorm because of the absence of certain noises and smells. I knew something was out of place as I stretched out in the bed and felt the absence of him. I was awake immediately and aware at once that I was in his room at The Den. The night before came flooding back to me, including my whispered confession. I was convinced that it had been those three words that had sent him running in the middle of the night, convinced that he had waited until I had fallen asleep so he could slip away without consequence. I sat up, brushing hair out of my face, my body tense with worry. I'd ruined it. Without meaning to, I had ruined everything.

But as I moved to slide out of the bed, something caught my eye. On the bed beside me was a rose, a single rose, and a note that read: The feeling is mutual. I tumbled, head first, into love with him, completely, in that moment. I knew, as I drew my legs up to my chest, clutching that note, that I would always choose him. People could try and come between us, circumstance could try and tear us apart, but I made my choice. After all, he was just a boy. But he was, in all ways, mine.


End file.
